Seven years ago this week, Neto and I were in the Pueblo Magico (Magic Town) of Tepoztlán, Morelos. The town is the believed to be the birthplace of Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god of the Aztec people. It is also home to a thriving Nahuatl community, one of the few places in Mexico where the Nahuatl language is still spoken and taught to children in school
I flew to Mexico City in 2013, to meet Neto and travel by bus to Cuernavaca. Our AirBnb apartment was so horrible we couldn’t stand to stay there during the day. We survived by taking day trips to the small towns nearby. Instead of lounging around Cuernavaca, we climbed pyramids and went to museums. We had lunch in hidden restaurants. And we went to Tepoztlán.
There are currently 112 towns in Mexico with the designation of being “Magic Towns.” I’ve been to five of them, Todos Santos (Baja California), Tlaquepaque (Jalisco), Sayulita (Nayarit) and Cosala and El Rosario (Sinaloa.) All of these towns are, indeed, magical places. (Well, Sayulita ~ not so much.) But Tepoztlán, one of the first three towns to win that designation in 2001, was the best.
Tepoztlán is famous for its sacred hilltop pyramid, a 16th-century convent, art museums and handicraft markets. The town is surrounded by tall cliffs. But we didn’t know any of that that when we arrived. I’d never heard of the place and Neto had never been there, so we mostly wandered and learned as we went.
It was later morning when we arrived. Our first stop was the Ex-Convento of Dominico de la Natividad, built by Dominican priests in the 1500s. It is an enormous church, dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. The church was undergoing massive renovation, including restoring the huge, original bells from the belfry, so we weren’t allowed inside. Instead, we strolled along the church sidewalks, wondering what to do. There are two museums on the grounds, but we decided to explore a large tent, instead. That’s where the magic came in.
Inside the tent, a man was bent over a very large piece of wood, carefully crafting a a series of murals out of seeds and different colored corn. The murals, depicting indigenous, historical events are a marriage between the Catholic feast of the Virgin Mary on September 8th, and the celebration of Tepoztécatl, the Aztec god of harvest.
Artists from Tepoztlán work on the murals from mid-summer until early September. Seeds and colored kernels of corn are sorted, filed and stored in an elaborate system of drawers at one end of the tent. The artists handle them like jewels.
The murals are enormous. When they are finished, they cover the walls on one side of the church for all to see. Including birds. For the rest of the year, birds pluck the seeds from the murals until, over the coming year, most of the seeds are gone and it’s time to start over.
From the churchyard, we could see a pyramid on top of Tepozteco Hill. Pilgrims follow a winding path through thick forest to reach the Tepozteco Pyramid. We were told that the hike could take from twenty minutes to three hours, depending on how fast we walked. Neto could probably do it in twenty minutes. I knew it would take me three hours. We decided to wait until next time.
It was getting close to 1:00 and we were hungry. We stopped at a small restaurant across from the church. We opted for traditional street food, quesadillas and tacos, rather than try a local favorite, itacate, a tortilla stuffed with ingredients such as pork crackling and roasted grasshoppers.
Neto and I often reminisce about our visit to the magic town of Tepoztlán. Although we talked about going back some day on September 8th, to see the murals, go to mass inside the church, shop at the market, and climb to the pyramid, it now seems an impossible journey. But, if you get the opportunity, maybe you can go in our place.